Worthy Meyer returned home from his sister"s thoroughly comforted. He thought no longer of suicide, but very quickly found himself a place as a.s.sistant in a merchant"s office; counselled his daughters to adopt some wholesome mode of life, and they, weeping sorely, promised to obey him.
Eliza got a situation with a sempstress; but instead of trying to get a governess"s place, Matilda preferred to go in for art, and as she had a nice voice, and could sing a little, it was easy for her to persuade her father that a brilliant future awaited her on the stage, and that that was the easiest and most glorious way to riches; and he at once bethought him of the names of several celebrated actresses who had also sprung from ruined families and, taking to the stage, had amply provided, by their own unaided efforts, for the wants of their growing families.
So Meyer allowed his daughter to follow her bent and adopt an artistic calling. At first she was only employed as a chorus-singer, but then, as every one knows, the most famous artistes have begun in that way.
Naturally enough, nothing of this reached the ears of Aunt Teresa, who fancied that Matilda was a governess. The worthy spinster herself never entered a playhouse, and if any one should whisper to her that one of the Meyer girls was employed in the theatre, it would be easy to say that it was another Meyer and not her kinswoman, Meyer being such a very common name. So poor Meyer really began to believe that now the whole family was going to lead a new and orderly life, that every one would do his and her duty, and prosperity would flow into the house through door, window, and chimney.
Mrs. Meyer had now to accustom herself to cooking, and Mr. Meyer to burnt dishes, and the whole family slaved away all day long. Meyer was occupied in his counting-house from dawn to dusk; Mrs. Meyer during the same period was in the kitchen; the children sewed and st.i.tched; while the bigger ones worked out of doors on a larger scale, one of them turning out a frightful quant.i.ty of hats and bonnets, while the other was mastering her n.o.ble profession, or so at least they made each other believe. As a matter of fact, however, Mr. Meyer lounged about the coffee-houses pretty frequently, and read the newspapers, which is certainly the cheapest way of taking one"s ease; Mrs. Meyer confided the pots and pans to the nursemaid, and gossiped with her neighbours; the children read books surrept.i.tiously or played at blindman"s buff; elegant dandies diverted the elder girl who was in the employment of the milliner, and it will be better to say nothing at all about the arduous artistic labours of the chorus-singer. The family only met together at dinner-time, and then they would sit round the table with sour, ill-tempered faces, the younger ones grumbling and whining at the meagre food, the elder girls with their appet.i.tes spoilt by a surfeit of sweetmeats, every one moody and bored, as if they found each other"s company intolerable, and all of them eagerly awaiting the moment when they might return to their engrossing pursuits again.
There are certain happy-minded people who never will believe what they don"t like. They won"t believe that any one is angry with them until he actually treads on their corns; they fail to observe whether their acquaintances snub them in the street; they never notice any change, however nearly it concerns them, even if it be in the bosom of their families, unless somebody calls their attention to it; and they will rather invent all sorts of excuses for the most glaring faults than put themselves to the trouble of trying to correct them.
Providence, as a rule, endows those people who have to live by their labour with a beneficial instinct, which makes them find their pride and joy in the work they have accomplished. When the whole family meets together in the evening, each member boasts of how much he has done in the course of the day; and how good it is that it should be so! Now, the Meyers lacked this instinct. The curse of the expulsion from Paradise seemed to rest upon _their_ labours. None of them ever boasted of having made any progress. None of them ever inquired how the others had been getting on. All of them were very chary how they opened a conversation, as if they feared it would be made a grievance of; and is there anything in the world so dreadful as a family grievance!
And grievances there are which speak even when they are dumb. Indoors, every member of the family began to wear rags, and this is what every family must come to that can only look nice in new clothes. Such people, unless they are able to sit before the mirror all day long, look draggle-tailed and s.l.u.ttish, even if the clothes that hang about them are not very old, and so betray their poverty to the world. The girls were obliged to get out and do up their last year"s dresses. Carnival time came round again, and big b.a.l.l.s were advertised, but they were forced to sit at home, for they had no money to go anywhere.
Meyer, in whatever direction he looked, saw nothing but ill-tempered, dejected, sullen faces around him; but after a while he did not trouble himself much about them. Only on Sunday afternoons, when a little of the wine of Meszely had soothed his nerves, would his tongue be loosened, and a fine flood of moral precept would pour forth for the edification of his daughters. He would then tell them how happy he was at having preserved the honour of his name, although he was poor and his overcoat was ragged (which latter fact, by the way, was not very much to the credit of his grown-up daughters), but he was proud of his rags, he said, and wished his daughters to be equally proud of their virtues, and so on. As for the daughters, they were, naturally, out of the room long before this sermon was over.
Suddenly, however, a better humour and a more cheerful spirit descended upon the family. Mr. Meyer, whenever he returned from his office or from goodness knows whence, would find his daughters boisterously singing.
His wife, too, bought new bonnets; their dresses began to look stylish again, and their food grew decidedly better. Mr. Meyer, instead of having his modest measure of Meszely wine on Sunday afternoon only, now met that pleasant table companion at dinner every day. He would have taken the change as much as a matter of course as the sparrows take the wheat from the fields without inquiring who sowed it, if his wife had not whispered to him one day that Matilda was making such delightful progress in her profession that the manager had thought well to very considerably raise her salary, but that the matter was to be kept secret for a time, lest the other chorus-girls should come to know of it, and demand a rise of salary likewise. Mr. Meyer considered this to be quite natural.
It is true he was a little surprised to find Matilda appearing in finer and finer clothes every day, and wearing continually the most stylish shawls and bonnets, which she pa.s.sed on to her younger sister when she had worn them a bit; he frequently noticed, too, that when he entered the room, the conversation was suddenly broken off, and when he inquired what they were talking about, they first of all looked at each other as if they were afraid of giving contradictory answers, and once or twice his impatience went so far that he asked his wife, "Why does Matilda wear such expensive dresses?"
And the good lady thoroughly satisfied the anxious pater-familias. In the first place, she said, the material of the dresses was not very expensive, after all; it was made to look like _moire_, but it was only watered taffety. In the second place, Matilda did not buy them at the original price, but got them from the prima donna for next to nothing, after she had worn them once or twice; the things were as good as given away. It was a common practice at the theatre, she said.
Mr. Meyer found that he was learning a great deal he had not known before. But he considered it all quite natural.
From henceforth the whole family did their best to keep him in a good humour. They consulted his wishes, inquired after his tastes, and were always asking if there was anything he fancied or had a particular liking for.
"What good girls these girls of mine are!" said this happy pater-familias to himself.
On his birthday, too, they had pleasant surprises in store for him in the shape of presents.
Matilda, in particular, delighted him with a valuable meerschaum pipe on which hunting-dogs were carved. The whole thing, not including the silver stopper, cost five and twenty florins in hard cash.
Moved partly by the fulness of his joy and partly because he thought it the proper thing to do, Meyer resolved to visit Aunt Teresa that very day, and was the more disposed to do so because a new velvet collar had recently been sewn on to his overcoat, so he stuck the beautiful meerschaum pipe in his mouth and went to Teresa"s dwelling, which was situated at the other end of the town.
The worthy spinster was sitting by her fireside, for she had a fire lighted though the spring was fine. Mr. Meyer greeted her without taking his pipe from his mouth.
Teresa made him sit down. Her demeanour towards him was most frosty; she coughed thrice for every word she spoke. Mr. Meyer was only waiting for her to say, "Where did you get that nice pipe?" and behind this expectation was the afterthought that, perhaps, when she knew of the festive origin of the present, Teresa also would hasten to gratify him with birthday gifts. At last, however, he was forced to begin the conversation of his own accord.
"Look, sister, what a handsome pipe I have!"
"It"s all that," she replied, without even looking at it.
"My daughter bought it for me as a birthday present. Look!" and with these words he handed the beautiful artistic masterpiece to Teresa.
She took the pipe by the stem and dashed it so violently against the iron foot of the stove that it flew to pieces in every direction.
Mr. Meyer"s mouth fell at both corners dismally. This was a pleasant birthday greeting if you like!
"Sister! what does that mean?" he cried.
"What does that mean? It means that you are a stupid, a fool, a blockhead! All the world knows that one of your daughters is the mistress of a n.o.bleman, and you are not only content to live with her and share her shameful earnings, but you actually come here to me and make a boast of it!"
"What! Which of my daughters?" exclaimed Meyer.
Teresa shrugged her shoulders. "If I did not know you for a credulous simpleton," said she, "I should take you for an abandoned villain. You thought me fool enough to believe that you were bringing up your daughter as a governess when she was on the stage all the time. I don"t want to tell you what my views are as to choosing a profession--I admit that they are old-fashioned, and out of date--but will you tell me how it is possible for a girl with a salary of sixteen florins a month to expend thousands on extravagant luxury?"
"Pardon me, Matilda"s salary has been raised," said Meyer, who would very much have liked others to believe something of what he believed himself.
"That is untrue. You can find out the real state of the case from the manager if you like."
"And then, too, her clothes are not as expensive as you fancy, sister.
She wears cheap dresses which she bought second-hand from the prima donna."
"That also is untrue. She bought everything brand new. This very week she purchased three hundred florins" worth of lace from Messrs. Flesz and Huber alone."
To this Mr. Meyer knew not what to say.
"Don"t sit staring at me there like a stuck pig!" cried Teresa, with a sudden access of temper. "Hundreds, aye thousands, of times have I seen her sitting with a certain gentleman, in a hired carriage. "Tis only a blockhead like yourself that can"t see what all the world sees! You are a stupid dolt, made to be taken in. I wonder it has never entered into the head of some play-writer to put you into a farce! What! a pater-familias who, when he is half-tipsy, on Sunday afternoons preaches moral sermons to daughters, who are laughing in their sleeves at him all the time, and who brags about the meerschaum pipe which the seducer of his own daughter gives him as a birthday present! Why, if I thought that you had had any idea of this abomination, I would sweep you out of this room with the very broom with which I now sweep up the fragments of your pipe."
Mr. Meyer was very much upset by this language. He got up without answering a word, put on his hat, and went, first of all, to the shop of Messrs. Flesz and Huber, to find out how much his daughter had spent there. It turned out to be considerably more than three hundred florins.
Aunt Teresa was certainly well-informed.
Thence he proceeded to the theatre, and inquired what his daughter"s salary was. The manager had no need to consult his books about it. He told Mr. Meyer straight out that his daughter was paid sixteen florins, but she did not earn it, for she was very backward in learning--in fact, she made no progress at all; nor did she seem to care very much, for she never appeared at any of the rehearsals, and her salary went for the most part in paying fines.
This was a little too much. Mr. Meyer was beside himself with rage. He rushed wildly home. Fortunately, he made such a row when he burst into the house that the other members of the family had time to get Matilda out of his way, so that he had to be content with disinheriting his abandoned daughter on the spot, and forbidding her, under pain of extermination, ever to appear beneath his roof again. A tiger could not have been more furious, and in the pitilessness of his rage he commanded that her accursed name should never be mentioned in his presence, and threatened to send packing after the minx whoever had the audacity to defend her.
His merciless humour lasted for a whole week. Very often his tongue itched to ask a question or two, but he stifled the rising words, and still kept silence. At last, one day, as they all sat together at dinner, not a single member of the family could touch a thing--then Mr.
Meyer could stand it no longer.
"What"s the matter with you all?" he cried. "Why don"t you eat? What"s the meaning of all this blubbering?"
The girls raised their handkerchiefs to their eyes, and blubbered more than ever; but his wife, loudly sobbing, replied--
"My daughter is dying!"
"Naturally!" replied her husband, thrusting such a large spoonful of pudding into his mouth that he nearly choked. ""Tis easy to say that, but it is not so easy to die!"
"It would be better for the poor thing if she did die; she would not suffer so much then, at any rate."
"Then, why don"t you send for the doctor?"
"Her sickness is not to be cured by any doctor."
"Hum!" said Mr. Meyer, beginning to pick his teeth.
His wife waited for a little while, and thus continued in a tearful voice--